hankyoreh

President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea walks with President Joe Biden of the US along a corridor of the White House ahead of their summit on April 26. (Yoon Woon-sik/The Hankyoreh)

There are both positive expectations and doubts about the effectiveness of the newly announced Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), a permanent consultative body consisting of the US and South Korea meant to respond to the North Korean nuclear threat by strengthening extended deterrence. There are also concerns that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could further rise with more regular deployments of US strategic assets.

Kim Tae-hyo, the first deputy director of the National Security Office, met with reporters on Thursday at the Foreign Press Center and remarked on the Washington Declaration, the document on extended deterrence based on the establishment of the NCG released to the public the previous day by Presidents Yoon Suk-yeol and Joe Biden.

“By incorporating a Korean-style extended deterrence action plan, the execution capability of the South Korea-US extended deterrence has been raised to a qualitatively different level compared to the past,” Kim said.

“President Biden reaffirmed his ironclad commitment to extended deterrence for South Korea and said that a North Korean nuclear attack against South Korea would be met with a swift, overwhelming, and decisive response,” Kim continued. “With the establishment of information-sharing and joint planning mechanisms for the operation of US nuclear weapons, our citizens will feel like we are really sharing nuclear weapons with the US.”

Deputy minister-level officials from both countries will participate in the NCG while the existing Deterrence Strategy Committee and Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group will either be absorbed into the NCG or combined with it.

“The NCG will be the most practical and authoritative consultative group to discuss extended deterrence,” a senior presidential office official said.

In addition, the presidential office explained that US and South Korean officials would meet regularly four times a year to discuss plans regarding the operation of nuclear and strategic weapons and joint extended deterrence and execution plans that combine South Korea’s high-level conventional forces and US nuclear forces in case of an emergency on the peninsula. The officials will then report the results of these meetings directly to their respective leaders.

In addition, the presidential office emphasized US plans mentioned in the Washington Declaration regarding the regular and continuous deployment of strategic assets (enhancing their regular visibility), such as nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), to and around the Korean Peninsula.

However, the presidential office did not give details regarding specific conditions or methods for the deployment of these assets, saying such matters still had to be discussed.

Moreover, the issue of the costs in relation to the deployment of such assets may become a problem in the future. More frequent deployment of such assets could be met with public criticism in the US, which could then lead to pressure for South Korea to bear the costs in some way.

Andrew Yeo, chair in Korea studies at the Brookings Institution, shared his views about the NCG with the Hankyoreh, calling the mechanism “meaningful both substantively and symbolically since it makes the [US] extended deterrence commitment to South Korea clearer.”

Yeo added, however, that the NCG “will not be effective in preventing North Korea, which is preoccupied with advancing its nuclear and missile capabilities, from developing weapons.”

Similarly, a former high-ranking Unification Ministry official said that “institutionalizing discussions alone does not seem very effective,” adding, “If anything, the deployment of nuclear submarines will provoke China and raise tensions in Northeast Asia.”

Unlike the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, the South Korea-US NCG excludes the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons.

“The outlook that [the NCG] will be more effective than NATO is an analysis based only on the speed of bilateral discussions between South Korea and the US,” says Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

“Questions remain about whether the nuclear umbrella will actually work in a situation where the final decision [on the use of nuclear force] rests with the US,” Yang said.

By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent; Jang Ye-ji, staff reporter

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